Messages

101

Living Room / Re: 38K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 23, 2013, 01:49 AM »

Just thought I'd let you know that I was very heartened / impressed that on a number of occasions Sandi broke into spontaneous laughter at some of the funny bits... we are enjoying the read   

102

Living Room / Re: 34K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 21, 2013, 08:57 AM »

Tell Sandi I'm thrilled that she's enjoying it, and that I hope she'll word-of-mouth it to her friends when it hits Amazon and other outlets.

-kyrathaba (June 21, 2013, 08:04 AM)

I hope it's not just the way I'm reading it 

103

Living Room / Re: 34K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 21, 2013, 07:40 AM »

Are you converting to metric (or should I stop looking)?

Sandi's really enjoying this BTW

Chapter 3:
Page 12.2 "Byron’s robot crawler had installed all over the compound, in miles and miles of wiring within conduit pipes" Metric... you are worried about imperial?

Page 12.3 " Nobody had died in A-3 in the years they’d all been sequestered here, except through illness. Until now." I think needs review...

Page 12.14 "that meant Eddie had to be very careful of what he said" Missing 'of'?

Page 12.15 Eddie says "I’m sure he’s working double-time to parse out the actual sequence of events" would a medical man say 'parse'? Maybe triage, or even sort??

Page 12.42 "can give a burst up to 1.8 seconds in duration that will cut a hole through up to twelve inches of steel or nine of ceramal alloy." Metric... 300mm and 229mm

-Perry Mowbray (June 21, 2013, 05:04 AM)

104

Living Room / Re: 34K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 21, 2013, 07:39 AM »

Hey Perry, let me know if you're ok with Pierre Maybrow as the steward's name.

-kyrathaba (June 21, 2013, 06:21 AM)

Not Warmboy? If it has to be... 

105

Living Room / Re: 34K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 21, 2013, 05:04 AM »

Sandi's really enjoying this BTW

Chapter 3:
Page 12.2 "Byron’s robot crawler had installed all over the compound, in miles and miles of wiring within conduit pipes" Metric... you are worried about imperial?

Page 12.3 " Nobody had died in A-3 in the years they’d all been sequestered here, except through illness. Until now." I think needs review...

Page 12.14 "that meant Eddie had to be very careful of what he said" Missing 'of'?

Page 12.15 Eddie says "I’m sure he’s working double-time to parse out the actual sequence of events" would a medical man say 'parse'? Maybe triage, or even sort??

Page 12.42 "can give a burst up to 1.8 seconds in duration that will cut a hole through up to twelve inches of steel or nine of ceramal alloy." Metric... 300mm and 229mm

106

Living Room / Re: 34K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 21, 2013, 03:39 AM »

Pierre Maybrow... hmmmmm...

 

-4wd (June 20, 2013, 06:54 PM)

I'm actually fond of 'Warmboy' myself...

107

Living Room / Re: 32K-word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 20, 2013, 07:39 AM »

I'm reading it out to my wife, so some older stuff I'll just double-check:

Chapter 2:
Page 11.4 "The recreation rooms weren’t much in demand these days. Most of the compounders felt too sick to engage in exercise on any of the machines in the gym section, though one or two people were currently in the large and lengthy pool, here in Rec-area #2" feels duplicated, as that's where we were described back a couple of paragraphs.

Page 11.29 "Three: Not only has Byron been able to use seemingly innocuous maintenance robots to protect our anonymity, but he’s equipped a special model conduit-crawler unit to place passive-monitor interfaces in miles of conduit pipes, some as small as four inches in diameter. So we’ll soon have access to all data flowing into and out of Core." Does this need to be metric?

Page 11.30 "Here’s the most important part: the door is diamond-matrix ceramal, four inches thick, with internal controls that can override those in Core." Metric?

Page 11.32 "Fifth, and finally, " for consistency's sake I'd use ":"

"Within two hours, that section of wall will be visually indistinguishable from the dozens of miles of plastcreted corridors throughout the entire facility. " Metric?

Page 11.41 "That night, Sethra and Veronee stayed in Sethra’s cubicle" maybe "That night Veronne stayed with Sethra in his cubicle."?

108

General Software Discussion / Re: image comparer desktop software

« on: June 18, 2013, 10:14 PM »

I use http://www.duplicate...inder.com/photo.html quite a bit, and find the similarity percentage helpful in sorting.

109

Living Room / Re: 29K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 17, 2013, 10:25 PM »

I'll stick with metric.

-kyrathaba (June 17, 2013, 10:13 PM)

Eh? Where? Surely you don't call "inch / foot / mile" metric? 

110

Living Room / Re: 29K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 17, 2013, 09:34 PM »

I'm not on a epub reader (using the html at work) so no page.paragraphs...

Chapter 10:
"But the more people I bring into my circle of confidence, the more potential humans an invasion force could torture for information extraction." 'potential humans'?

"The group sat in a tavern within the town that styled itself “The Prancing Unicorn”" styled??

111

Living Room / Re: 29K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 17, 2013, 09:08 PM »

So where is the app that is going to come out of this regarding the facilitation of exchange and management of change suggestions in written works?

Microsoft Word in mark-up mode?

Although I know what you mean, ewemoa. Why don't you code it for NANY 2014?

-kyrathaba (June 17, 2013, 07:20 PM)

I've used Google docs successfully for small numbers of people, tho' the rules are not there like in MSWord.

Wouldn't a change timeline feature be cool (so you could see the evolution by changing a slider)... or even author selector...

112

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 10:00 PM »

In Chapter 9:
somebody gets lots in the forest       becomes:        somebody gets lost in the forest

-kyrathaba (June 16, 2013, 08:54 PM)

Oh... I was thinking effects of alcohol

113

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 09:52 PM »

Chapter 9 Page 18.54
"This land mass had relatively few survival pockets of humanity, in comparison to what the aliens had learned the locals referred to as North America and Europe."

I think this should be:
"This land mass had a remarkably resilient population, which had managed to survive almost intact and was constantly confounding all their efforts to dominate them."

 

114

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 09:44 PM »

Chapter 9
Page 18.44 "He’s ? most as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion." missing "remembered"?

Page 18.54
"beneath the surface of one of their lake" should be "lakes"
"Then, it would send the data to the mothership, already light-years ago" is this correct? should it be "away"? Maybe I'm just not understanding 

115

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 09:26 PM »

The comment I just made regarding sight/site:

Forget it, my interpretation was wrong 

It's official, I'm illiterate.

-4wd (June 16, 2013, 09:16 PM)

Had me convinced 

116

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 09:17 PM »

Chapter 8,
page 17.7: "“Roger that, sir. We’re almost to the point right now where we’re going to have to pause and robotically collect and transport what we’ve drilled through, getting it out our way.”" should be "getting it out of our way"?

117

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 08:40 PM »

I keep thinking that they need voice-activation macros... I can't believe that they're restricted to a string of single commands and that no one has implemented voice batches 

118

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 16, 2013, 08:31 PM »

Chapter 1,

page 9.27: "build a sight deeper than this" should be "site"

page 9.32: "No need for a nuclear strike, if these aliens were sophisticated enough to slay a quarter of the population with a long-range electronic virus they bathed the planet in before they were even all the way in-system" despite 4wd's observations I think that the use of "a" and "they" causes confusion in my mind (tho' I'm no grammar expert either)... but I would have something like "a long-range..., which they..." or "the long-range... that they" type thing.

Chapter 2,

page 10.4: "Most of the compounders felt too sick to engage in exercise on any of the machines in the gym section, though one or two people were currently in the large and lengthy pool, here in Rec-area #2" I would have thought that was not necessary, as that's what is being discussed?

page 10.17: "“Chief of Security to Shaft Access Tunnel. Who’s on patrol, there?” he sent out via his communications console." Doesn't quite work for me...

page 10.33 "Nothing will hinge on one single weak leak in the chain", should be "link"?

page 10.41 "That night, Sethra and Veronee stayed in Sethra’s cubicle" didn't sound right to me... I think the double "Sethra", but that may be a matter of opinion?

Chapter 4

page 12.2 "the unmistakable grooves of a huge borer machine tiled the walls in a spiral pattern that made Byron think of the helix of stripes going up a barber’s pole" I would have put it "slick with moisture and the unmistakable grooves of the huge borer machine. The spiral pattern made Byron think..."

page 12.10 "“How...reassuring,” said Zuzana" I would have a space: "How... reassuring"

page 12.11 "It’s nearer end was heavily bolted to the two-meter-width circular catwalk that traversed the Shaft’s perimeter" should be "Its"

page 12.20 "“Not only that, but we need to keep our exposure time as short as possible,” Eddie added." When I read this I thought that it's odd that this is all coming out now... that they probably, if well planned, would have covered that previously. But maybe the planning was not that 'well'??

page 12.33 "circular platform of heavy-gauge aluminum mesh flooring" Do you think "flooring" is required?

119

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 14, 2013, 09:37 AM »

Couple more from me (enjoyed the read!  Hurry up with your writing!!!!  ):

Prologue:
Page 8 "anti virus" could be "anti-virus" / "antivirus"?

Chapter 1:
Page 9 "existing infractstructure" should be "infrastructure"

Chapter 2:
Page 10 "accompanies group pasttimes" should be "pastimes"
Page 10 "wiggle-room for screwups" should be "screw-ups"
Page 10 "Excute these commands" should be "Execute"

Chapter 3:
Page 11 "responsibility lays on the shoulders of a leader" I would have said "lies"?
Page 11 "ongoing coverup, if there is one" should be "cover-up" or "cover up"
Page 11 "heavy plastic toolcase" I would have thought it should be "tool case"?
Page 11 "Zuzana unzipped the heavy dufflebag" same for "duffle bag"?
Page 11 "The ride to our dropoff point" should be "drop-off" or "drop off"

Chapter 4:
Page 12 "here for millenia after we’re gone" should be "millennia"

About the Author:
Page 14 "last few year’s in DonationCoder’s" should be "years"
Page 14 "local methodist church" should definitely be "Methodist"

120

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 14, 2013, 07:51 AM »

In the original post, I've uploaded epub and mobi versions of the eBook with the addition of Chapter 5

-kyrathaba (June 14, 2013, 07:47 AM)

Cool... it was depressing to see Chapter 5 totally blank

121

Living Room / Re: 16K word sample of my sci-fi ebook, due on Amazon and B&N in October

« on: June 13, 2013, 11:12 PM »

Are you taking proofreading finds?

From page 14: "a" should be "as

Sethra tuned out, and subvocalized, “Resume dictation. Dr. Hasser has his head on straight, and the Administrator has his head in the clouds, perhaps saying hello to the aliens, if they’re still up there, and politely and charmingly asking for their help in ‘Project Moving Deeper.’” Sethra grinned and glanced around the circular, twenty meter diameter chamber, trying to take the emotional temperature of the group a a whole. Lots of crossed arms. Even more glazed expressions, though that could be

122

Living Room / Another Piece for another Son & Daughter-in-Law's Wedding

« on: March 05, 2013, 05:27 AM »

It's just a month since I finished the first mosaic for my middle son (and now wife) and I've got the 3rd Son's done!

This one was quite different:
The PhotoMosaic was an image of Nathanael and Monica that was made up of photos of their friends and family (that sounds familiar, right?).
In the end I had 1,645 photos to work with. The finished image was then colour separated into four separate images comprising the C, M, Y
& K layers and then each printed onto A1 transparent sheets. These four A1 transparent sheets were then cut into either 8 landscape tiles
or 9 portrait tiles, giving 34 tiles in total. These 34 tiles were then put into envelopes (with instructions) and compiled on the day by
the guests, in a slightly random order, giving a slightly random development of the final image: Cyan on Magenta creates a different
colour to Cyan on Yellow.

Confused? The printer was too, so I created this example to show the printer (and others) so they'd get the idea what I was planning:

If you want to read the story behind the mosaic, it's written up in this blog post.

I put together an actual time-lapse of the mosaic construction:

If you'd like to compare my mock-up with what really happened I did a shortened time-lapse of just the changes here.

The PhotoMosaic is up on my site as an Interactive Mosaic as well.

Actually, I have a question for any web devs who might know: the Interactive bit is a thumbnail mouseover on an imagemap (through js) with an anchor link to fullsized image that's displayed in a fancybox pop-up. Works fine in Chrome and FireFox but IE (up to fails when clicking on the imagemap to open the image in fancybox. Love an idea or two to get me going... or an idea to work around it?

123

Living Room / Re: The Piece for my Son (and Daughter-in-Law)'s Wedding

« on: January 29, 2013, 10:23 PM »

You are right (and I wasn't serious)... but I still find the change concerning as it's like reducing the size of the can of Baked Beans but keeping the price the same.

I was also shocked, or maybe 'confronted' is better, by the "Wedding Industry"... how can we let this level of materialism happen? You mention wedding and instantly zeros are added to the price... and the poor couple are emotionally blackmailed with phrases like "your special day".

Thankfully our kids got strong heads (from somewhere?): Keren's reception ended up $50 something a head (which I think is extremely reasonable, even if we are paying  )  Goodness only know what it'll be like for their kids (maybe Chris is right and we should start saving now? ) ...which reminds me I've just about finished The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, which is one of the better books I've ever (nearly) read.

124

Living Room / Re: The Piece for my Son (and Daughter-in-Law)'s Wedding

« on: January 28, 2013, 09:17 PM »

Thanks guys: I'm not sure when the world changed Chris, but the grooms parents now pay just as much as the brides     (or are we soft touches?    )

I'm now working on my third son's wedding piece, which will actually be printed and manufactured, although along a similar theme: but at least once it's at the printers I wont have performance issues to worry about 

I think I'm going to have to go for a walk when these are done: just to clear my head!

125

Living Room / The Piece for my Son (and Daughter-in-Law)'s Wedding

« on: January 28, 2013, 05:10 AM »

I'm just taking a quick breather from my creative endeavours, as I've just got one off my plate; and I thought you'd be interested in what's keeping me busy...

If any of you followed my links to my Bushwalking Mosaics you'll understand where the inspiration for the piece came from, and if you're interested you can read more of the why and how here:

I've pulled out the end tile of the animation as the final PhotoMosaic. On the site I've added an interactive version where all the tiles are available as a pop-up thumbnail and full size image; not that you'll know anyone .

Watch the video first!

So... that's one son down and one more to go (youngest son has his wedding in under 4 weeks)       I think I've got his piece under control...